STIGA Airoc Medium Rubber Review

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TableTennisDaily had the fantastic opportunity to review STIGA's latest Airoc Medium Rubber.

@Dan used the STIGA Emerald blade and @Tom used the STIGA Hybrid Wood blade in the review which looked at the STIGA Airoc Medium rubbers on both sides of their blades. The review looks at various techniques and a range of shots used in today's modern game of table tennis and also which types of players this rubber is suited to.

Thanks to STIGA, Daniel Ives, Tom Maynard, and Kingfisher Table Tennis Club in the making of this review.


We hope you enjoyed this review, let us know what you think by posting below guys. STIGA players Jean Michel Saive and Truls Moregardh (Winner of euro mini champs - Best 12 year old in Europe) are now using the Airoc medium rubber. Jens Lundquist is looking to change from his Calibra LT to the Airoc rubber.

Check out more TableTennisDaily Equipment Reviews here.
 
the rubber is consistent. you need to adjust on the low to medium throw. also, as what Dan stated, Airoc M works best when hitting the ball peak or off the bounce timing.

Anyway, I will be posting below my review for the Airoc as what me and Dan agreed upon. We almost have the same findings on the rubber.
 
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Stiga Airoc M


Weight: approx. 68 grams uncut (max)
Hardness: Medium
Speed: Off
Test Blades: Stiga Emerald VPS, Stiga Ebenholz 5









It took me a few days to review this rubber and carefully considered the negative feedbacks from people who have tried this rubber. I would rather be objective on the Airoc M's individual strengths and weaknesses instead of just dismissing it as a bad rubber. I cannot blame other people but it is also unfair to just judge the rubber which I have found some redeeming qualities.


The Airoc M was made due to people asking Stiga to make better rubbers than the Calibra Tour Series. The clamor was for an increased spin when Stiga's newer rubber comes out. I have not yet tested the Airoc M with the new polyball because I am still waiting for Stiga to send me some samples together with the Airoc S rubbers.





Out of the box, as what I have mentioned before, the Airoc smelled like and looked like it was tuned. The rubber has a reversed dome. It comes with a new light blue sponge which is porous and could be mistaken as an ESN made rubber. The "Made in Japan" label on the topsheet confirms that it is not.










Above and bottom pictures are the close up views of the new porous japanese sponge for the Airoc M.















Pictures above are the sample rubbers of the Calibra Tour and Airoc M. I took photos of the 2 rubbers together and let people see the differences in topsheet. The Tour topsheet has a mat black look while the Airoc topsheet is a bit shiny and has a different grainy look.


I glued and tested the Airoc M both on the Ebenholz 5 and Emerald VPS together with the Calibra LT Spin for a base comparison. Here are the following things I have observed and I will try to be objective on each attribute of the rubber under testing:


Speed


I rate the Airoc M as fast but nowhere near the level of T64 in terms of speed and bounce. If compared to Stiga's own rubbers the Calibra LT and LT+ are both faster than the Airoc M. The Airoc M however is faster than the Calibra LT Sound and LT Spin versions. I noticed the bounciness and lively attributes of the Airoc M the moment I hit it with both Ebenholz 5 and Emerald VPS blades. When you hit with it using drives, the newly developed sponge which looked like a tensor sponge at first has a very good reaction against the ball when you hit through the sponge.


Feel


The Airoc M doesn't feel like a true medium hardness rubber. It felt like a medium soft rubber when hitting hard. I would say the approximate sponge hardness equivalent to a euro rubber is about 45 degrees. The rubber has a loud sound when hitting through the sponge. It sounded different from the calibra series rubbers which have a dull sound with the exception of the calibra lt sound rubber.


Control


Despite the fast speed of the Airoc M, the control is obviously good for a fast rubber. It was good
enough to control strong smashes near and far from the table. The balance of speed, control and good feel contributes to making the rubber very easy to use even for intermediate players. The control is unlike that of the faster calibra rubbers like LT+ and LT versions which require a little more skill and touch. I can safely say that the Airoc M is a good blocking rubber both forehand and backhand with my preference to the backhand because I love its good feel and control. It's like a toned down T64 in terms of speed and spin but with a softer feel and better control. The topsheet is not sensitive to incoming spin making it very good for receiving serves.


Spin


This is where most people are most interested before this rubber came out because they wanted something spinnier than the tour series. I asked for a calibra spin rubber side by side with the Airoc M because I felt the Calibra LT Spin is the spinniest modern Stiga rubber. To say that the Airoc M lacks spin is a bit unfair. I would rather judge the Airoc's performance on specific spin-based strokes. Let me establish the fact that the Calibra LT Spin is still spinnier than the Airoc M. I rate the Tour Series as having Average Spin, the Airoc M as having Above Average Spin and Calibra LT Spin as High Spin capability. There is a vast improvement in terms of spin for the Airoc M compared to the Tour Series. The Airoc is spinnier maybe by about 20-25% just to crudely put into numbers. I think many people will like the Airoc M if they do loop drives at peak of the bounce or off the bounce attacks above the table. If you hit more through the sponge when spinning then there is good spin. When you loop on a delayed contact timing or when the ball starts to go down then you would notice that the amount of spin is not as high compared to the first 2 timing contacts. In order to produce good spin you really need to use and hit through the sponge rather than just brushing it with less contact. This is for the forehand loops and spin drives. On the backhand, I found that the Airoc M redeems itself. It is a very good backhand rubber. I let my students block my backhand loops in different timings they say it is much spinnier compared to when I was using it in my forehand. The 2 first early contact timing against the ball still has the same results for the backhand with the late contact on the ball having lesser spin. So I realized that the AIroc is better for speed attacks with more emphasis on speed than spin. That is where the Airoc M shines. I do not think it suits a spinny looping game though.


So I conclude that the Airoc M is a very good rubber. It may differ from people's expectations because of having used to fast and spinny euro rubbers but this rubber is not bad at all. I really need to test this on the polyball together with the Airoc S when it arrives because Stiga says this was designed for the polyball. ​
 
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Thanks for again a great review.

It seems that this rubber is very reactive to incoming spin or it lacks control. I noticed more errors made by both of you compared to previous reviews.
Is the hardness of the topsheet comparable to for example BF M1 or M2?

Or perhaps it's because the rubber has more spin than they are use to from other rubbers?
 
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As the rubber is designed with poly ball in mind and there is no mention of ball used in the review so I guess it is still old celluloid. Results may be different using the new ball.

I have it as RPB on Intensity carbon. Somehow I found it having a higher throw than JP01 Turbo on FH, which suits the lower bounce new ball pretty well. Could it be that the blade + rubber combination cause the medium low throw in the review?


And great shot at 6:33 Dan, Wow!
 
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I felt the rubber to be very inconsistent when playing match game when you need more variations in your game. Very often the ball "dies" on the rubber and hit the net. And also to soft if you hit very hard.
 
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